Mr Edwin Liu, the Assistant Director of Guest Experience at The Middle House, a Preferred Hotel, started his career in 2010 after graduating from university. He was born and raised in Hong Kong and spent the majority of his hotel career with The Upper House in Hong Kong until he moved to the magical metropolitan city of Shanghai, to the Middle House. Let’s scratch the surface and find out more about his hotel and the city of Shanghai…

Favourite locale when enjoying a day off
Apart from spending time in my home, I enjoy exploring the city on a bike! My favourite locale so far, for wandering around in my free time, is the Former French Concession. Just rolling along the tree-lined streets on my bike is enjoyable.

Where he takes his own guests when they visit
Without a doubt, I bring my own guests to visit the Former French Concession, as it’s my favourite part of town in Shanghai! The buildings and roads are full of history and it’s a unique area with a harmonised mixture of East and West throughout the years.

It’s a rainy day but we want to explore, what we should do
One of the best thing to do on a rainy day is to stay in ‘our house’ and explore our MI XUN SPA | THE LAB | SHOP, Restaurants and Bars! Our MI XUN Spa provides some relaxing and wonderful treatments with my favourite CHA LING products. The scent is just amazingly nice and calming. Our three restaurants are also something that I enjoy a lot: Breakfast at Café Gray Deluxe, dim sum lunch at Sui Tang Li and Dinner at Frasca, the Italian restaurant! And if you really want to leave the hotel and explore Shanghai in the rain, you can go on a shopping journey in the nearby malls and shop until you drop! The connecting Taikoo Hui mall, and the nearby Plaza 66, and Kerry Centre, etc., are all great places to shop. Other than that, there are some outstanding art galleries in Shanghai, like the Long Museum, The Power Station of Art, and so on.

Recommended night-time entertainment
At night in Shanghai, you will never get bored. Numerous bars and restaurants on the Bund provide the iconic view towards the Pudong skyline. Among them, I recommend Hakkasan, Canton Table and Shanghai Tang to have a nice Chinese dinner. If you are not afraid of heavy music, you can visit Bar Rouge or La Baron for a dance! Two speak-easy bars are also highly recommended, and they are Sober Company and Speak Low. One truly unique and magical entertainment is a bar-plus-magic-show experience in Blackstone, which I enjoy a lot, too.

Which key phrase or phrases visitors should learn
The key phrases to learn will be:

• “Nihao” – Hello
• “Xie Xie” – Thank you
• “Hao/Buhao” – Good/Not good
• “Ni hui shuo ying wen ma?” – Do you speak English?

Best shopping
Tianzifang and Xintiandi are the best places to shop and to buy souvenirs in Shanghai. You can find something you like easily in these two places, from a simple key chain to a tailor-made delicate Qipao (Chinese dress, a symbolic dress for Shanghai)!

A child-friendly thing to do or place to go
Disneyland Shanghai is definitely on top of the child-friendly activity list and I would be the happiest kid if I could visit there! And of course, another lovely thing to do will be joining a dumpling tour which includes a dumpling-making class so your child can make some traditional Chinese dumplings! Another option will the indoor theme park called Shanghai Joypolis, powered by SEGA Japan, which combines ‘Digital’ and ‘Real’. If your kid likes to jump around, they can jump a lot, literally, in the indoor trampoline park, Park 360.

Best kept secret or favourite hidden treasure

The People Square on a weekday and a walk through Shikumen next to ‘our house’ is a hidden gem of Shanghai. It is not commonly visited by travellers, but you can really see how a local’s life is.

Best way to get to the airport
By our ‘Blue Eagle’, Tesla Model X, or you can try the Meglev which is the first commercial high-speed magnetic levitated train that takes you from Pudong International Airport to the city in Pudong area in 8 minutes and travels at up to 300 kilometres per hour!

Best time of the year to visit
April-June or September-November.

Anything else we should know when visiting
Make sure you have your China Visa straight. Be prepared with some VPN apps on your phone to get past ‘The Great Firewall’. Sufficient cash as many stores doesn’t take foreign credit cards but only the Chinese payment Apps: Alipay, Wechat Pay, or cash.

 

For more information, or to book, click here.

Photo by Chastagner Thierry on Unsplash